R.I.P. Nipsey Hussle (Ermias Asghedom) Aug. 15, 1985 – Mar. 31, 2019

Sadly we’ve lost another promising hip-hop artist and entrepreneur far too young. Ermias Asghedom, better known professionally as Nipsey Hussle, was shot and killed outside of his Marathon Clothing store on Slauson Avenue in South L.A. Two other people shot are also in serious condition as of the writing of this article, and the suspect in the shooting remains at large. Ominously Hussle had put out a tweet a couple of hours before the bullets flew that seemed to foreshadow this incident.

Most accounts say that Hussle and actress/model Lauren London had a child together, and that’s doubly interesting given that London had previously given birth to Kameron Carter, her son together with Lil Wayne. For the record there’s no report of Dwayne Carter having anything to do with Hussle’s passing, and the intent of this update is certainly not to imply such, but unfortunately despite having a partner in common they did not appear to be on the best of terms. That may be in part due to Wayne hinting at a gang connected past and Hussle having unapologetically stated his own association to a historically diametrically opposed gang, though their factions would be from completely different cities and neighborhoods.

It’s plausible that somebody Hussle referenced in his tweet other than Wayne had a personal beef with him; it may be even MORE likely that because the shooting took place outside of the clothing store he owned that it was a robbery gone bad. Unfortunately whatever the reason it brings an abrupt end to a career that had only recently kicked into high gear with the release of “Victory Lap” in 2018, which was nominated for (but did not win) a Grammy award. It even featured a music video where Hussle seemed to be purposefully trying to squash the beef between the aforementioned rivals by featuring red and blue in almost perfectly equal measure.

Aside from the fact a child no longer has a father and a peace maker no longer has the opportunity to build bridges between communities, one of the biggest tragedies here is that Hussle had aspirations to inspire the kids coming after him. He joined a team that created Destination Crenshaw, an open air museum to African-American artistic achievement. When interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Asghedom had this to say: “In our culture, there’s a narrative that says, ‘Follow the athletes, follow the entertainers’. And that’s cool, but there should be something that says, ‘Follow Elon Musk, follow (Mark) Zuckerberg’.”

For these reasons and so many others, we say rest in peace to Nipsey Hussle.